How To Kiss Well

Then, right before the monotony becomes a turn-off, go for a lip. Choose top or bottom; the more thickly fleshed is probably the best one. Once you've focused on just one lip, you create so many options: simple suction; the lip switch from top to bottom, or bottom to top; the sly addition of the tongue; escalation to a full-on frencher, then a teasing retreat; the nibble. The wonderful thing about a lip lock is that once it's established, any kissing partner with a modicum of creativity will discover the possibilities and try the combinations. All you have to do is reward them by returning the favors.

More important than any single technique, though, is a general principle: you have to awaken your bad kisser's creativity.

My proudest kissing conquest, for example, is my current girlfriend, Sarah. She was the ultimate challenge. When we first met, she didn't like to kiss. She thought it felt phony. If you were feeling so damn passionate, she reasoned, then why weren't your clothes off? Being the lucky object of her passion, I didn't much argue the point—at first. Instead, I just tried to understand how on earth someone could dislike kissing.

To my surprise, I found that Sarah had much in common with the overenthusiastic tongues of my youth. For all of them, kissing was nothing more than an intimation of sex. For the over-kissers, like Julie the tongue-invader, kissing was good to the extent it mimicked intercourse. For Sarah the under-kisser, it was just a step toward what happened next. As a result, she, like other kissing dilettantes, could not see the range of kissing possibilities. 

In its fully realized form, kissing is an alternate language in which lovers conduct a parallel courtship—they tease, they connect, they discover an accord. In this second relationship, the kissing relationship, Sarah needed to take it slow. I found that she had no problem with playful kissing. She would always return a peck, and bite back if I nibbled her lip. She could enjoy a kiss that did nothing more than flirt.